


Burning Sphere

by sylvia_t_fury (this_bliss)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Experimental Style, Original Character(s), Science Fiction, Space Opera
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 11:42:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28599408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/this_bliss/pseuds/sylvia_t_fury
Summary: Set 25 years after the Battle of Endor and away from the main conflicts of the First Order and the Resistance, Alyla is a young girl that has always felt different but doesn't know much about what's happening outside of her isolated desert planet until by chance she's taken in by a group of smugglers and is told of the burning sphere, a mystical object, that legend claims can bestow great power upon the person that touches it. Born a slave, a young girl becomes a young woman, a young woman becomes a woman, and a woman becomes a hero to the entire galaxy.





	1. Chapter 1

_“Suffering is the fuel in the engine of civilization."_ – Vergere

Cracks on a mirror’s surface splinter a face into a mosaic of disjointed feminine features: eyes, nose, mouth. The reflection of the woman breathes deeply, regarding herself in the fractured mirror. She touches first her mouth, then her nose, then her eyes, a penetrating green that glow in the dirty reflection.

Labored breathing interrupts her contemplation, interrupting her reverie and returning her to the present. She turns and looks down. A man lies on the ground near her. He clutches his left side and not too far from him lay a heavy blaster, the heat of its last shot still emanating from the barrel. The man’s face is smeared and distorted and drips like hot wax from a sputtering candle onto the floor.

He issues a pitiable moan. She looks away from the man and looks at the vibro-knife in her hand. The cold metal is stained crimson with the man’s blood. She looks at her hand, at the palm of her hand, and sees that she is cut. Beads of blood drip down her palm and onto the floor where it mixes with the man’s blood.

_I must not hesitate. Never hesitate. Always act with purpose. Never hesitate. Does the bonegnawerhesitate before striking? Hesitation is for the weak. The indecisive. Does the bonegnawer hesitate before striking?_

She raises the vibro-knife a little above shoulder height, preparing to strike.

She awakens. The world seems to vibrate as she looks around. Sounds are shimmering, colliding with each other, a strange symphony of the unreal and the unfamiliar, the familiar and the real. She looks around, her head on the ground.

“Was that you?” she asks.

“What’s that now?”

She pushes herself up from the ground and looks around. A man with a warm smile sits close to her with legs crossed. He is tall and dark with penetrating green eyes that seem to glow, eyes like hers.

“Were you the one playing the flute?” The man looks around in confusion. “No, I wasn’t playing a flute. I don’t, no. I don’t have –”

“Huh,” she pauses. “Did we find it?”

“You were the one that did it. You tell me.”

She smiles and pushes her long hair out of her eyes. She reaches and touches a nearby tree. She strokes the rough bark, presses her finger hard against the bark, and feels the imprint of the bark form on her fingertips. She gives a little moan. She looks around at the dense green foliage that surrounds her. She looks at her hand, along with the tree, that anchors her to this consciousness.

“What did you see?” the man asks.

“I guess, I mean, I guess –”

She screws up her eyes, willing herself to remember. Impressions, swift and fast, flood her mind. She feels the warmth of distant suns on planets she has never visited. Feels the low rumble inside her chest as the ground shifts beneath her and she falls, falls into inky black, passing crystal spires that stretch on endlessly to some sort of vague horizon. She sees her pasts, imagined and real. She sees her futures, so many that they seem to spread out like hairline fractures on the surface of a cracked mirror. She stands before the many strands spread out in front of her that form a delicate web of possibility. She sees the imagined futures that are paradoxically indistinct but defined in the same moment, shifting from one state to another so quickly that they are both nothing and everything and nowhere and everywhere. Tantalizingly in reach but disappearing in a haze as she reaches out for them proving no more substantial than a mirage.

“Alyla?”

His voice interrupts her trance. “I saw what I saw,” she says clumsily.

“What kind of pseudo-mystic speech is that?”

She laughs affably. “Well, that’s the best I could come up with and you probably wouldn’t understand because you haven’t gone.”

“Gone? You didn’t go anywhere.”

“I did.”

“No, you didn’t. I was here the entire time.”

“True, but –” her voice trails off.

He looks at her and gives a sad smile. “I’m, I’m afraid.”

“Of what?”

“Of, well, I don’t know, but I know I’m afraid.”

“Are you afraid of losing yourself?”

He shrugs. “What would you lose? Would you lose Rohnar?” she asks.

“I don’t know.”

“Is that what scares you?”

“I mean, I guess. I, I don’t know. Maybe?”

She smiles and gives an understanding nod. He returns the smile.

“But,” he says hesitantly. “What did you see? Tell me.”

“Ok. I’ll try.”

Alyla runs in the burning desert sand. She passes a small puddle of water and stops. She bends down and looks at herself in the still water. The reflection is that of a much younger child of maybe nine or ten. Rohnar, young and clumsy, ambles over, bends down and looks at the puddle.

“Whatcha looking at?” he says. Alyla points at small tadpole-like creatures that swim around the still water.

“Huh. Neat,” Rohnar says.

“Will they grow up to be frogs?”

He nods yes.

“And then the Hutts will eat it?”

He shrugs. “Maybe. I mean, I guess, I guess. I mean, not, not these frogs. Not the frogs that we, that are grown on, like, farms. Besides they’re stuck in this puddle.”

“What does that matter?”

“It’ll dry up, eventually.”

“The frogs will dry up?”

“No, the puddle will dry up.”

“What will happen to the frogs?" Rohnar shrugs. Alyla looks sadly at the tadpoles. She cups her hands and scoops some up.

“Hey, what are –”

Alyla watches the tadpole-like creatures swim around her cupped hands.

“Hey, put them back,” Rohnar demands.

“Why?”

“Because.”

“Because why?”

“Because they could die. I dunno.”

Alyla puts the tadpole creatures back into the small puddle of water. “Won’t they die out here?”

“I don’t think so. I mean, the ones we grow, they do about the same. You gotta let nature handle it.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

“Because why?”

Rohnar rolls his eyes.

“Did you finish work today?” Alyla says with a quick glance at Rohnar. Rohnar looks off vaguely in some direction and shrugs.

“Y-yeah.”

“So why don’t we go home?”

“Because I don’t want to, ok?”

Alyla looks questioningly at him.

“Ok, ok,” he says. “Let’s go home.”

Rohnar turns and makes his way home. Alyla follows close behind but takes one last look at the puddle before turning her back and walking on home with Rohnar.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A brief look back at the lives that shaped our protagonists.

Alyla and Rohnar make their way through the harsh desert, back to civilization, though it could hardly be considered civilized. They make their way through the city, through the maze of tarps that shield the merchants from the blazing sun that hangs threateningly overhead, through the haze of hot coals resting in stone pits that grill the vendors food, through the tightly congested kiosks that line the streets. They pass, finally, down that alley of broken dreams, where men drink themselves into a stupor and convince themselves that yes, this is really how they imagined their life turning out. Yes, this is what I want. I want this because I want it and not for any other reason, they think to themselves in so many words. Another juri juice, they say. Another and another. No, the children make their way even passed that dead-end street to a place of even more dispiriting squalor.

The slave quarters. The place that Alyla and Rohnar know as home. A hodgepodge of dilapidated homes so tightly packed together that it resembles rows of jagged teeth in the gaping maw of some horrid creature that waits to swallow poor unsuspecting victims that dare pass it.

Children run naked through the streets, giggling as they play tag. Little boys and girls, of all species, relieve themselves on the side of whatever structure is closest to them. Mother’s admonish the children for various infractions or to simply take out their own frustration on the one thing that they have power over like their own master’s do to them, the master’s that hold all the power.

What little that can be seen of the streets, the streets that hadn’t been swallowed up by the sand, is nothing more than a passing reminder that at some point there was some sort of infrastructure in these quarters, at one point, but it could hardly be said to exist now.

Alyla and Rohnar walk to a house but before they can even enter the door opens and a shadowy figure stands before them blocking their entry.

“Where have you been?” Alyla and Rohnar look up at the speaker.

“Just playing, mom,” says Rohnar.

“Just playing?”

“Yes.”

Rohnar’s mother looks sternly at her child. Rohnar starts to enter but he is pushed back by his mother.

“And where do you think you’re going?”

“I’m hungry.”

“And?”

“And, and I’m hungry?”

“Did you finish work?”

“Yes.”

She fixes him with a penetrating stare, her green eyes flashing dangerously.

“I did.”

“You’re lying. Go finish your work for Finor. I’ll not tell you again. I wouldn’t be surprised if he flogs you. Serves you right.”

“Is that him? Get that boy in here,” a man’s voice rumbles from somewhere in the house.

“You’d better get straight to work or your father will give you a good flogging of his own. You’re already late as it is.”

“But –”

“Go.”

She presses a button and the door shuts with a pneumatic hiss. Rohnar stares at the door, mouth agape. He turns around and indicates the house with his thumb.

“Can you believe her?” he says to Alyla.

“Yup.”

Rohnar kicks up some dirt in frustration which blows back into his mouth. He splutters and curses.

“Come on,” he says to Alyla.

“But I already did my work.”

“Oh so now you’re gonna give me lip?”

“No.”

“Fine. Stay here. Who needs you?”

He huffs away making his way through the street.

“Wait.” Alyla runs to catch up with him. He turns back and smirks.

“I’m -- I’ll go,” she says.

“Thanks,” he says with a smile. Alya returns the smile.

They walk together back through the same streets and turn down an alley to a junk shop. Behind a slapped together fence lies the junkyard with its mishmash of scrap and parts. Rohnar looks around cautiously before climbing over the fence. He helps Alyla over and they enter the shop through the back.

Alyla bumps into broken droids that hang from wires in the crowded shop. Rohnar presses a finger to his lips.

“Rohnar.”

An inhuman voice crackles from somewhere in the shop. Rohnar’s shoulder slump in resignation and he turns to look. A droid, humanoid in appearance with a blank white face, haltingly makes its way toward the two children.

“You are late,” the voice issues from a broken speaker.

“Yes, sir. I’m sorry.”

“You are late.”

Rohnar nods, looking down as the droid approaches closer and closer.

“You will stay longer tonight to make up for time lost.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And your rations will be halved for one week as punishment.”

“Yes, sir.”

Rohnar tries to look impassively at the droid but his burning eyes betray his calm demeanor. The droid stops and looks at Alyla.

“How may I help you?”

“I’m, I’m a slave, sir.”

“Present your arm.”

Alyla complies. The droid grabs her wrist and turns it to look at the underside of her forearm. Tattooed is a serial number: AX125078. He scans it.

“My master has three slaves and you are not one of them.”

“No, sir.”

“Why are you here?”

“I, I, I was –"

“Leave or I will call the authorities and your master.”

She nods and scampers out of the shop. The droid turns its cold dead eyes at Rohnar.“Go to work,” the droid intones. Rohnar nods and heads to the back with the broken droids.

The sun sinks low casting long shadows on the ground. Alyla crouches on her haunches grabbing handfuls of sand and letting the sand fall from her hand like an hourglass. She turns as if someone has tapped her on the shoulder. Rohnar stands behind her with a look of surprise.

“How do you do that?” he asks questioningly.

“Do what?”

“Know I’m trying to scare you.”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. I just feel you, I guess.”

“Well, whatever. Let’s go.”

They walk passed some street vendors. “You hungry?” Rohnar asks.

Alyla’s stomach rumbles. “Huh. Yeah, yeah, I guess.”

Rohnar peers inside his money bag. He has three peggats, one trugut, and a handful of wupiupi. He smiles and hails a vendor.

“How much for those gorgs?” Rohnar points to a vaguely amphibian creature that hangs on a string.

“Eighty-four wupiuipi.”

“For two gorgs?”

The vendor shakes his head. “No, each.”

Rohnar stares in disbelief. “I can buy milk for fifteen wupiuipi. That’s, that’s too – no, that’s –”

The vendor shrugs. “Then get some milk.”

Rohnar turns to stare in disbelief at Alyla. “Can you believe it?” Rohnar hitches up his money bag and walks away from the food stall. He and Alyla stand underneath the shade of a canopy. Rohnar looks around surreptitiously. “You know what that means?”

They share a conspiratorial glance before Alyla smiles and nods in eager anticipation. They run through the streets looking this way and that. Rohnar scans an alley and spots a small group of men.

“Ah,” he says, coming to a stop. Alyla bumps into him. “How about them?” he points to the small group. Alyla follows his finger to see where he indicates. It’s a small group of five men. The group is composed mostly of grans with a younger humanoid male thrown in for variety.

Rohnar approaches the group. “Hey. You guys playing dice?”

One of the grans looks at Rohnar. The others in the group pay the children no mind. The gran waves an impatient hand at Rohnar, shooing him away. Rohnar shrugs. “Suit yourself.”

Rohnar takes out a money bag and shakes it in an exaggerated fashion. The chink of metal resounds seemingly throughout the alley. The group look at Rohnar with professional interest, smelling blood in the water.

“How much you got?” says one of the grans.

“How much to play?” Rohnar asks.

The gran eyes Rohnar and then looks at his fellow gran. The gran nods. “One fifty.”

Rohnar steps back with a look of incredulity on his face. “One fifty?”

“Yeah, kid,” the humanoid smirks.

“But that’s more than -- how can – so one fifty for both of us?”

“No, each.”

“Each? Three peggats to play?”

The humanoid nods. Rohnar grimaces. The humanoid shrugs. “Fuck. Just get out of here, you little shit.” The group return to throwing dice. Rohnar takes out his money bag and takes out the last three peggats he has.

“All right, all right. Here.” Rohnar holds out the gold ingots for the man to take. The gran takes the ingots and examines them. The group of men look at the money and then the kids. A gran give a grudging nod of ascent to the children.

Rohnar glances at Alyla. Alyla inclines her head slightly in reply. A gran places the money on the ground in a small pot. “Main?” a gran asks gruffly.

Rohnar considers for a moment. “Seven.”

The gran smirks and gives Rohnar two misshapen clay dice with dots roughly bored into its six sides. Rohnar and Alyla squat down.Rohnar cups the cubes in his calloused hands and shakes them, the dull rattle of clay filling the prickly silence.

Alyla closes her eyes and in the empty void of her mind she sees perfectly the dice and their trajectory as a future Rohnar throws the dice. She sees that Rohnar will roll a two and a one for a sum total of three, losing them the game and moreover their bet in this current iteration. She considers and sees by choosing one of multiple iterations presented to her that if she were to wave her hand at a precise moment it would change the trajectory of the dice for a more favorable outcome of two and five for the desired seven they need to win.

Rohnar throws the dice against the side of a wall. Alyla deftly moves her hand, feels a tingle – perhaps best described as the phantom sensation of the dice on her fingers as she moves them through forces unseen – that causes a subtle change in the rotation of the dice. When the dice stop, they stop on two and five for a total of seven.

The gran takes the pot and tries to give the winnings to Rohnar but he is stopped by the humanoid. The humanoid scoffs. Rohnar looks up at the sound. “What?” he says with a nervous glance.

The humanoid shrugs, “Nothing special. Seven is pretty damn safe, kid.”

“So?”

“Why don’t we make it more interesting?”

“How?”

The humanoid holds up three gold peggats. “Double.”

“But I don’t have anything to –”

“Don’t worry. If you lose, I get...” The humanoid glances at Alyla. “...the girl.”

Rohnar shakes his head in disgust. “No deal. Just give me back my –”

“It’s all right,” Alyla’s soft voice issues from behind Rohnar. The humanoid grins.

“But,” she says. “Only if all of you double up.”

The humanoid looks at his companions and his grin becomes more bestial. “Deal. Winners take all.” He rubs his lips obscenely. The grans murmur but relent as they quickly scan Alyla. The grans put three peggats each into the money pouch. The humanoid pushes the dice toward Rohnar. Rohnar takes the dice and shakes them in his calloused hand.

“Five.”

“Hold it,” the humanoid holds up a hand. “Eight.”

“Eight what?”

“You gotta roll eight.”

“What?” Rohnar glances nervously at Alyla who nods back reassuringly. “Fine. Eight. Now can I go?”

The humanoid shakes his head. “Nah. You’re going chance ten.”

Rohnar stares incredulously at the humanoid. “But that’s, that’s not, that’s –” Alyla puts a placating hand on Rohnar’s shoulder. Rohnar swallows and nods. He rolls the dice and again Alyla is treated to the many iterations of the dice throw and chooses six and four.

The humanoid shakes his head. “Lucky, kid. Let’s see if you can get lucky again.”

Rohnar shakes the dice in his calloused hands. “It’s also gotta be fives,” the humanoid blurts out.

“You can’t keep, like, changing things. It’s not fair.” Rohnar protests.

The humanoid shrugs. “Fine. Maybe we’ll just –” he takes the money pouch in one hand and Alyla’s arm in the other. Alyla gives a startled gasp of surprise as she’s lifted to her feet. Rohnar stands up, dropping the dice. “Get your fucking hands off her.”

“Then roll.”

“Let go of her.”

The man shakes his head no. The grans guffaw with lustful licks and smacking of their lips. Rohnar breathes deeply, glances at Alyla, nods curtly, and tosses the dice.

Alyla closes her eyes and even in her panicked state sees the trajectory and moves her hand. The dice land on five and five. The group of men look in astonishment at the dice. Rohnar grabs the money and Alyla and they run away.

Rohnar and Alyla put a healthy distance between themselves and the group before they both stop to lean against a wall, panting.

“Good work,” Rohnar says with a grin.

“Thanks,” she says grinning back.

“S-sorry about, you know, that, you know.” Rohnar fidgets uncomfortably.

“It’s ok.”

“You had everything under control.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

Rohnar takes the money bag and weighs it in his hand. It chinks merely in his hand as dandles the money pouch. He opens the bag and takes out thirty-three peggats. The golden ingots seem to wink at him in the scorching desert sun as Rohnar examines them.

“Why don’t we just do this everyday?” Alyla asks innocently.

Rohnar pockets a peggat. “What? And draw attention to ourselves? Nah, we gotta be smart. And besides, this is more than anyone we know makes, so – ”

Rohnar and Alyla have subconsciously walked to the gorg stand from before with the gorgs on display.

“Two,” Rohnar says.

The vendor eyes him. “You again?”

“Two,” Rohnar gestures to the gorgs emphatically.

“You got money or did you waste it on milk?” the vendor chuckles at his rapier wit.

Rohnar digs into his money pouch and gives the vendor two gold ingots, two truguts, and eight wupiupi. The vendor looks at the money, “two wupiupi and I’ll add extra topping.”

Rohnar gives the man a look of disgust. “Fine.” Rohnar hands the vendor the required amount. The vendor takes the money, nods, and throws two gorgs on a grill. The gorgs dried flesh sizzles and browns as the Maillard reaction occurs. The vendor lightly dusts the gorgs with delicate spices that curl from the gentle heat of the white coals below the grills. The air fills with the delicious smell of spice and meat. Alyla sniffs the air with an expression of eager anticipation and feels the tang of the spices in her nostrils. She smiles and looks at Rohnar with a dreamy expression which is mirrored in Rohnar’s own face.

Rohnar and Alyla sit on a bench in a shaded and empty plaza located as far away from home as their tracking devices will reasonably allow them to go, and feel in the evening – evening, that medial time when the sweltering heat of the twin suns slowly recedes to be replaced by the cool air of the west and that welcomed western air makes further promises of an even cooler respite when evening eventually fades and is replaced with the blue of night and its cold embrace of comfort and forgetfulness – as if they are in a different place, a different world, and feel, with a child’s perspective and understanding, that _this –_ whatever _this_ is – will last forever, and that time will stop, and they’ll stay in this shaded and empty plaza forever – even though, with perpetual apology to the child of today, the vague nagging voice of tomorrow’s adult which buzzes like white noise in every child’s mind tries to inject common sense into the proceedings and impress upon them that such things, such feelings, such places, will eventually fade as all things fade, but they are able to ignore that adult voice and dispel it with an easy, carefree laugh that only youth can provide, they use that laugh almost as a form of protection, though in time that adult voice will become the only voice they hear and they’ll forget that a carefree laugh from youth can dispel the doubts of the adult world – a complete peace.

Rohnar and Alyla finish their gorgs. Rohnar belches richly and pats his stomach in a satisfied way. Alyla imitates Rohnar and they both laugh.

“Let’s go home,” Rohnar says with a smile and a twinkle in his eyes, and even though he has seen his fair share of violence, experienced his own share of violence, known so much that only he as a child born in bondage would understand, when he looks at Alyla there’s a tenderness there that’s only reserved for her. Alyla nods in assent to his pronouncement and they walk back home, playing games as they make their way through the slave quarters, laughing, and slapping each other playfully. They reach Alyla’s home.

“Well,” Alyla says. “See ya.”

Rohnar gives a lopsided grin. “Not if I see you first.” He turns and walks toward his own home. Alyla smiles and goes inside her home.


End file.
